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Matural Maoick. Booky ..

Mice are generated of putreftttion.

©Womsauh, that neer to the City Thcbais in Egypt, when Nilus overflowing ispart, the Sun heating the wet ground, the chaps ot the earth fend forth great storeok mice in many places; which aflonifheth men to fee, that the fore-part of the miceshould live and be moved, whereas their hinder parts are not yet shapen. ‘Tliny faith,that after the swaging of Nilus, there are found little mice begun to be made ofearth and water, their forc-parts living, and their hinder parts being nothing butearth. tÆliamu faith, that a little rain in Egypt, engenders many mice, which be-ing scattered everywhere in their fields, cat down their corn, and devour it: And soit is in Pontus; but by these prayers to God, they are consumed. tMacrobiue andAvicenna say, that the mice so generated, do encrease exceedingly by coupling to-gether. Aristotle found out, that a kind of field-mice encrcased wonderfully; sothat in some places they did suddenly eat up whole fields of corn : insomuch thatmany Husband-men appointing to reap their corn on the morrow, when they camewith their reapers, found all their corn wafled. And as these mice are generatedsuddenly,so they are suddenly consumed, in a few dayes; the reason whereof can-not be so well a siign ed. Pliny could not find how it should be; for neither couldthey be found dead in the fields, neither alive within the earth in the winter time.Diodorttt and tÆHantes write, That these field-mice have driven many people of Ita-ly out of their ownCountrey : they destroyed Cofas,aCity of Hctruria: many cametoTroas, and thence drove the inhabitants. Tbeophraftue and Vsrro write, That micealso made the inhabitants of the Island Gyarus to forsake their Country; and thelike is repotted of Heraclea in Pontus, and of other places. Likewise also

Frogs are wonderfully generated of rotten dufi and rain ;

for a Summer showre lighting upon the put rifled sands of the shore, and dust ofhigh-wayes, engenders frogs. tÆUamu, going from Naples in Italy, to Puteoli, sawcertain frogs, that their fore-parts moved and went upon two feet, while yet theirhinder parts were unfashioned, and drawn after like a clot of dirt; and Ovidfaith, one part lives, the other is earth still: and again, mud engenders frogs thatsometimes lack seer. The generation of them is so eafie, and sudden, that sortiewrite it hath rained frogs P as if they were gendred in the Air. Pbyiarchue in Atloe-rtam writes so; and Heraciides htmbrn writes, that it rained frogs about Dard'ariyandPœodia, so plentifully, that the very wayes and houses were full of them:and therefore the inhabitants , though for a few daics at the first they endured so,killing the frogs, and shutting up their houses, yet afterward when they saw it wasto no purpose, but they could neither use water, nor boil meat, but frogslwould bein it, nor so much as tread upon the ground for them, they quite forsook their coun-tries, as Diodorus and Eustathiue write. The people Autharidæ in Thespratia, weredriven out of their Country, by certain imperfect frogs that fell from heaven. Butit is a strange thing that

Kjd Toads are generated of dirt t and of womens flowers*

InDariene, a Province of the new world, the air is most unwholesome, the pTlisobeino muddy and full of stinking marifhesjnay, the village is so self a marish, whereToads arc presently gendfed of the drops wherewith they water these houses, as*Feter Martyrmkcs. A Th ad is likewise generated of a duck that hath lyeft rottingunder the rrtud, as the verse shews which is ascribed to the duck; When I am rottenin the earth, I bring forth Toads; happily because they and I both, are moist audfoul creatures. Neither is it hard to generate Toadcs of womens putrifiedflowers; for women do breed this kind of cattel, together with these children, isCeline Aurelianue and Plateariue call them, frogs , toads, lyzards, and such like:and the women of Salerium, in times past, were wont to use the juice ofParsley and Leeks, at the beginning of their conception, and especially about thetime of their quickening,thereby to destroy this kind of vermin with them.A certain

woman